Okay
by LilinasWrites
Summary: Kurt and Blaine are making their way in New York in excellent style. Their sex life has become more adventurous than ever, including some experiments in power exchange that excite them both. But Kurt doesn't know if he's ready when Blaine asks to hurt him.
1. Chapter One

"If you think it looked bad from the wings, you should have seen it up close! I thought Kurt was going to burst into flames right there on the stage."

Everyone laughed, the whole cast and half the crew lounging in alcohol-fueled post-show relaxation on the couches and every available floor space of the director's tiny apartment. Everyone except Kurt, who was still fuming. Curled up in a little armchair, he dropped his face in his hands and groaned.

"Like, I seriously feared for my life," his co-star Triel continued. "There were literal daggers in his eyes. I have never kissed such a tense mouth in all my years of kissing."

Kurt made another noise of protest from behind his hands.

Marvin, the director's husband, came in from the kitchen with a new bottle of wine and made the rounds filling everyone's glasses. "So, wait, what happened?" he asked his wife.

"Cell phone!" at least seven voices chorused in answer, but Kurt's, pitched high with lingering indignation, topped them all.

"Say no more," Marvin said, pulling an appropriately horrified face.

"No lie, I feared for my _life,_" Triel went on dramatically. "I was sure Kurt was going to pull a Patti LuPone right then and there. I could _feel_ his temperature going up every time the goddamned thing tinkled that stupid tune – it was the Brady Bunch song of all things, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or flee the stage in _terror_ . . .

"It's the story of lovely lady . . ." Polly the stage manager began. She was quickly joined by others in a drunken, too-loud chorus of singing and laughter.

Kurt knew they weren't laughing at him so much as commiserating about the terrible audience member and trying to cheer him up, but he needed to put some space between himself and the reaction. He slipped out of his chair and over to the kitchen table to grab another slice of pizza from the boxes piled there.

"They tease because they love." The director of the play, Meg, had followed Kurt to the table and she smiled at him as she reached for her own slice.

"I know, I really do," Kurt assured her. "I just haven't let it go yet. We're pouring our hearts out up there. Is it that hard to turn off a fucking phone?"

Meg slipped her free arm around Kurt's waist and gave him a squeeze. She was the kind of person who was simply terrible at reading other people's signals to stay an arm's length away. People like that usually set Kurt's teeth on edge, but Meg's personality was so soothing in every other way that he gave her a pass.

"It's times like these," Meg whispered close to his ear, "when we should try to remember the nice things. Like reviews. In the Village Voice. That said 'Kurt Hummel is . . .'"

"A revelatory new addition to the New York stage scene," Kurt finished for her, tossing his head a little, only partly in jest. "Yes, I remember. And that does ease the pain somewhat."

"I thought it would." Meg flashed him a knowing smile. "Where's Blaine, by the way? I thought he was coming tonight."

"He had to go have dinner with his mom at the last minute. He said he'd try to swing by after."

"I hope he does. You need him. That boy's smile could pull Sylvia Plath out of a funk."

Kurt laughed at that in spite of himself.

He was carefully adding red pepper to his pizza when the doorbell rang and of course those little packets were impossible to open so he didn't realize the object of their conversation had actually arrived until Meg called out, "Blaine!" and lips pressed to Kurt's cheek. He leaned into the kiss, still wrestling with the pepper, and just as he conquered it with a triumphant "Ha!" Blaine's hand slid down his arm and pinched sharply at the skin over his elbow.

It was a signal. One that usually came when Kurt was least expecting it, which was part of the point. One that he wasn't in any frame of mind to defer to tonight.

They'd started playing with power exchange early in their relationship. They'd tried a lot of kinks – they were young and excited about each other and sex. Kurt had loved the bondage right off. It gave him a special kind of adrenaline rush knowing that, theoretically, Blaine could do _anything_ to him. Of course it was Blaine, who wouldn't overstep a soft limit to save his own life, but tied securely immobile on a bed, it was easy for Kurt to let himself imagine he was in the hands of a ruthless pirate or sexy Roman conqueror. The danger of it may have been largely imaginary, but his dick responded enthusiastically anyhow.

The submission took more time. It was never really Kurt's thing. But any show of it – Kurt kneeling or crawling across the floor – did something profound to Blaine. It seemed to fill him with a sense of power and, more importantly where Kurt was concerned, an ability to act on that power. And pushy, bossy, demanding Blaine just did something to Kurt; it touched him in places that he rarely allowed himself to be touched. Blaine was never shy about telling Kurt how much he loved and wanted him, and Kurt believed him, but when Blaine got dominant there was an intensity to his every look and touch, a possessiveness that Kurt's higher brain told him he shouldn't be so turned on by, but his body responded to with a depth of emotion and desire that completely took his breath away.

They didn't do it all the time, and at first they kept it to the bedroom, but slowly the role-playing aspect of these games gave way to just them, each letting himself admit that he loved it not because of the pirates or the centurions, but because of what it did to and for him. Kurt found that he loved the way he felt kneeling gracefully, or crawling naked toward Blaine, angling his body in just the right ways and watching the heat rise in Blaine's beautiful eyes. He'd never expected it, but he enjoyed being made to feel like an odalisque, a radiant, purely sexual being whose only concern was to create pleasure. He loved the way Blaine would stroke his body, whether he was tied down or standing up against a wall. He was surprised to realize he loved being teased; loved the way it made him feel like every cell in his body was aroused and responsive to the smallest look or touch. He wouldn't have called himself a submissive, he didn't really think of it that way, but submit he did, and when he did, he loved every second of it.

But really, Blaine wasn't a dominant. He was a giver, and in dominating Kurt, Blaine gave him the freedom to not have to worry about anything at all. He gave him sensation and pleasure and his unwavering attention. He was playful, most of the time, because he was Blaine after all. But every once in a while something would happen. If Blaine was having a bad day or feeling particularly out of control, dominating Kurt gave him more than just sexual satisfaction. It released him, somehow, and helped to bring him back from whatever edge he'd been hovering over. Despite Kurt's insistence that he wasn't in it for the submission, those times when Blaine's dominance came from a deeper place than sex games were always the most satisfying for Kurt too. Blaine's need for him would be visceral, immediate, and crucial. And by stepping outside himself to fill that need Kurt experienced something he could never adequately describe, a kind of objectification that wasn't really objectification but being shaped into the instrument of some profound effect inside Blaine. He didn't understand it and he probably wouldn't have asked for it, but when it happened he flung himself into it and came out the other side limp and exhausted but deeply satisfied.

Blaine was the one who'd suggested they play with doing it in public. He wanted to see what it would feel like to tell Kurt what to do in front of other people, clueless people, and watch him obey. Kurt, for his part, made a token protest because it seemed like the expected thing, but soon he was imagining it, when they were out in public, how it would feel if Blaine was still in charge, secretly, and he was taking orders right in front of people. Just the imagining was unexpectedly erotic, so he decided to give it a try.

The rules were simple. A pinch on the elbow was Blaine's sign that he wanted to do it. If Kurt didn't feel right about it he'd pinch Blaine's elbow in return and that would be it. But if he didn't opt out, he'd be expected to clasp his hands whenever he expressly didn't need to use them, to keep himself oriented around Blaine, facing him no matter where he moved, and to obey any suggestion Blaine made as if it was a formal order. Blaine, for his part, agreed not to ask Kurt to do anything that might reveal exactly what was going on. The first time they'd done it Kurt had been breathless with nerves, but no one had had an inkling and the experience of obeying Blaine in front of their friends had been so erotic that they'd barely gotten through the door that night before they'd stripped off their clothes and fucked right there against the door. That became their regular pattern any time they played the game. Sex against the wall, on the floor, one time they'd made it all the way to the couch – which Kurt had then forbidden Blaine to sit on until he'd had it thoroughly steam-cleaned. On those nights Blaine was so intense and demanding, so unlike _Blaine_, that it felt to Kurt like he was being fucked by a stranger and more, being overwhelmed by him, enveloped, assimilated.

It was very, very good.

Blaine, for some reason, always felt the need to apologize after a night like that. Whatever took him over in those moments, he seemed to have a harder time accepting his need to command and take than Kurt did accepting his own desire to be taken. No matter how much Kurt tried to reassure him that the unfamiliarity only added to the delicious sense of almost-danger that made him wild with desire, a part of Blaine saw it as a failure – of self-control or chivalry maybe, Kurt didn't know quite what the problem was for Blaine. His own reactions should have been enough to let Blaine know that he was perfectly happy with that particular side of his boyfriend. They were certainly enough for the neighbors, who had had to pound on the walls on more than one very humiliating and noisy occasion.

But as much as Kurt loved everything about that kind of sex, tonight wasn't the night. He was tired and completely out of sorts. He wasn't being a diva; the show was tough enough without stupid audience members who didn't have the common sense of an ant. He planned to finish his pizza, maybe have a little too much wine, then go home and fall into the deepest, hottest bath he could manage to coax out of the ancient pipes in their building. Then sleep. Preferably until noon. His hand was halfway down Blaine's arm to deliver his return pinch when he finally lifted his eyes from his pizza and actually looked at his boyfriend.

He could see immediately that something was wrong. Blaine's eyes were wide and oddly skittish, like a horse trapped in a fire in some old western movie. There was too much white in them. His lips were pressed into a thin line (not easy for Blaine's cupid's bow to achieve) and tension pulled at the muscles around them and bunched in his jaw.

"Honey!" Meg cried. She leaned close to give Blaine, who was still holding Kurt's elbow, a smooch on the cheek. "I'm glad you made it. Poor Kurt needs you tonight."

"What happened?" Blaine's eyes darted from Meg to Kurt, looking even more alarmed.

Kurt shook his head. "Nothing. It was nothing." He set his paper plate down on the table and deliberately clasped his hands and turned so that he was fully facing Blaine. He was rewarded with a tight smile, but the panic around Blaine's eyes retreated a bit and that was enough to make Kurt's cock stir – quite inappropriately, he reprimanded it silently. But seeing the way Blaine reacted to his compliance always had that effect.

"I'm sorry, Meg," Blaine said, still staring at Kurt and, Kurt hoped, drawing strength from his eyes. "Something's come up and I need to talk to Kurt. Is there someplace we could –?"

"Bedroom," Meg said, anticipating him with her usual quick grasp of a situation. She pointed down the only hall. "Where we put the coats," she clarified, as if there might be a few other rooms to choose from.

Blaine turned without a word – his lack of courtesy scared Kurt even more than his troubled eyes – and Kurt smiled a thank you at Meg as he followed.

It wasn't far to the bedroom; Blaine was there before Kurt was even all the way out of the living room. When Kurt crossed the threshold Blaine was on the other side of the room, putting the bed between them. Kurt suspended the hands clasped rule long enough to pull the door closed behind him and turn the lock. Then he laced his fingers together – behind his back this time – but he stayed facing the door because he was completely lost as to what he should do.

His overwhelming instinct was to run to Blaine, hold him and ask him what had gone wrong. What any boyfriend would do when the guy he loved looked as desperately unhappy as Blaine had when he'd arrived. But the elbow pinch meant something, especially in a situation like this, a situation that seemed completely at odds with their usual playful approach to public displays. So he held still, listened to the harsh rasp of Blaine's breathing, and waited for some signal from Blaine.

But no signal came. When Kurt finally turned around he understood why. Some kind of battle was going on inside Blaine. He stood on the other side of the bed piled high with coats, his lips still pressed tight, shaking his head like he was rejecting the advice of a voice only he could hear. Kurt's heart started to beat too fast; it scared him to see Blaine look so lost and out of control.

"What do you need?" he asked finally, in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.

His words set Blaine in motion. He crossed the room in three leaping steps, wrapped a hand – cold, too cold to just be the effect of outside weather – around the nape of Kurt's neck and pulled him into a hard, frantic kiss. His lips and tongue moved restlessly, like he was searching for something inside Kurt's mouth, but when he pulled away his eyes seemed to be more focused, his breathing a trifle calmer. He still held Kurt's neck and Kurt pressed his forehead to Blaine's, keeping them connected.

"Tell me," was all he said.

"It's just my mother. You know how she can be. I don't want to talk about it." Blaine's voice, louder than Kurt's, was sharp with anxiety.

"What _do_ you want?" Kurt asked again.

Blaine pulled back enough that Kurt could see that he still looked haunted, lines of tension outlining his eyes and mouth. He searched Kurt's face for something, then shook his head again, negating that voice that Kurt couldn't hear.

But Kurt had heard enough. He had just enough room between the door and Blaine's body to lower himself, carefully because his hands were still clasped behind his back, to his knees.

Blaine's reaction was immediate. "No, Kurt, we can't –"

"Is this what you need?" Kurt asked quietly. He had never knelt for Blaine anywhere but in their apartment, but he felt amazingly calm in spite of that.

"We're not home. Anybody could come to get a coat or something."

"I don't care," Kurt said firmly. "I care about you."

"I can't ask you to –"

"You didn't ask. Is this what you need?"

It was obviously what Blaine needed. Already, even as he glanced from Kurt to the door and back again, his shoulders were relaxing and his breathing losing the anxious rasp it had had before. Blaine sighed, closed his eyes for a brief moment, then simply stared down at Kurt, who held his gaze. He stared for what felt like a long time, too long maybe, long enough that someone might come looking for them. A tendril of fear fluttered in Kurt's belly but he reminded himself that the door was locked and that this was helping and he kept his eyes solidly on Blaine.

Finally Blaine sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, controlled. He dropped to the floor, held Kurt's neck in a warmer hand, and kissed him again, this time slow, soft and sweet. Then he buried his face in Kurt's neck and sighed.

"Thank you. I'm okay now."

But Kurt could feel Blaine's heart against his own chest, through all their layers of clothes. "Are you?" he asked. "Or do you need more?"

"Kurt . . ."

"Let me help you." Kurt kept his hands behind his back but he shrugged his shoulders so that Blaine was forced to sit up and look at him. "This is what we do. We help each other. Whatever it is, let me help."

Blaine searched Kurt's face again. It was clear he was tempted. Kurt could see how much Blaine wanted to believe that he was okay with this.

"Are you sure –?"

Kurt raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips – patented Kurt Hummel bitch face.

Blaine huffed an almost-laugh. "Okay, I get it." He took Kurt's face in both his hands. "Thank you," he said fervently. "I love you so much."

One more kiss, swift and intense this time, and Blaine was on his feet again looking down at Kurt with not a trace of indecision. This look Kurt had seen many times before and his body responded to it almost immediately.

"We're leaving," Blaine said, in the commanding tone that made Kurt's knees weak and his toes tingle. "You're going to make some excuse and say your goodbyes. Once we're out the door, your hands go behind your back again and they stay that way until I say otherwise. Understand?"

It took a few seconds for Kurt to catch his breath enough to say "Yes," firmly enough to reassure Blaine. Because the idea of taking this out onto the street, into a cab, maybe, was the exact combination of frightening and exciting that always made this kind of play so evocative for him.

"Where's your coat?" Blaine turned to the pile of fabric on the bed.

"It's my green one, right there by the pillow," Kurt jerked his head, the only thing he could move, toward the jacket.

"Stand up."

Blaine held out the coat and Kurt stood and slipped his arms into it. Then Blaine took his hand, unlocked the door, and led him out into the main room.

Talk had turned to a new topic, something about proper arrangement of the props table from what Kurt could tell, but heads turned and voices raised in protest when he appeared behind Blaine with his coat on.

"You really have to go? It's early!" Meg protested, hopping up from her chair.

Kurt gave a shrug that he hoped looked apologetic. "There's a family thing," he explained. "Nothing major, but we have to go deal."

"I'm sorry to drag him away," Blaine chimed in, "but I really do need him."

Blaine, at least, wasn't even fibbing and Meg's sharp eyes must have seen his sincerity. She gave each of them a peck on the check, while others waved hands and hollered goodbyes from the circle of chairs and pillows.

"Fine, I'll forgive you this time," Meg said. She smiled at Kurt. "Go take care of your man. We'll see you Thursday. And I promise to repeat the cell phone warning at least three times." She winked and shooed them out the door, barely giving Kurt time to wave a goodbye to the rest of the cast.

As soon as the door closed behind them Blaine dropped Kurt's hand. Kurt clasped his fingers together behind his back and Blaine reached around to wrap his hand around both of Kurt's.

"That's good. Just like that, all the way home."

The reminder made Kurt quiver with anxiety, but the tone in Blaine's voice when he said it had the opposite effect: it made him feel still and certain. The conflicting sensations left him breathless and off balance. He stayed close behind Blaine as they moved toward the elevator, and actually pressed against him once they were inside.

Stepping out onto the busy sidewalk, Kurt felt as exposed as if he was standing naked, although of course no one paid any attention to a man with his hands behind his back. He'd known that no one would. The taxi was another matter, he thought, but even that fear seemed exaggerated. It was awkward and humiliating climbing in with his hands clasped, waiting for Blaine to buckle the seatbelt for him, but the driver didn't so much as glance in the rearview mirror at him, not even when Blaine gave him their address. It may have felt like the height of exposure to Kurt, but to the cabbie it was just another Saturday night in Manhattan. In fact, so much a Saturday night in Manhattan that Kurt's greatest source of anxiety was trying to keep himself upright without the use of his hands through the lane-changing, quick stopping, accelerator-to-the-floor carnival ride that was a New York cab driver specialty. One he barely noticed anymore – when he had the ability to hold on.

Blaine had taken the middle seat and he crowded close, wrapping an arm around Kurt's shoulders to hold him steady. Kurt leaned gratefully into the support. Gratefully and more, because this was what always got under his skin and made him squirm in wonderful ways when they played. Blaine knew Kurt was strong and he was always content to sit back and watch Kurt take over the world. But when Kurt submitted and allowed himself the appearance of weakness, Blaine took control, both physically and emotionally, with an ease that was unexpected and full of exciting possibilities. And letting Blaine do that turned Kurt on much more than he ever would have guessed it could. His cock was stirring purposefully just from this – from accepting Blaine's hands to keep him steady in place of his own – and his heart fluttered in his throat at the thought of what was to come. Blaine pressed gentle kisses into Kurt's hair, when the bounce of the cab allowed it.

By the time they pulled up in front of their building Kurt was hard (thank God for his long coat) and excited enough that the ride up in the elevator with his hands behind his back didn't seem daunting at all, despite the prospect of meeting someone they knew. It didn't hurt that as soon as the double doors slid shut behind them Blaine pounced on him with a fervent, "God you're hot like this," pressing him back into the wall, forcing him to arch around the handrail. He devoured Kurt's mouth. It was more assault than kiss but it was just exactly what Kurt craved, so he clasped his hands tighter and let himself be plundered and didn't care one single bit whether anyone else might get on and interrupt them. In fact, he hoped they did. He wanted someone, anyone, to see how intensely Blaine desired him.

But no one did interrupt them, probably fortunately, because by the time they reached their floor Blaine was palming Kurt's cock through his jeans and sucking his neck, while Kurt was thrusting into the heat of Blaine's hand and moaning much too wantonly for public consumption. The ding of the bell managed to penetrate Blaine's consciousness at least – Kurt would have been happy to stand there being fondled forever – and they pulled apart just as the doors opened. No one was there to raise an eyebrow at Kurt's flushed and disheveled state. He'd be happy for that, he knew, in the morning, no matter what his lust-filled brain was telling him he wanted now.

He expected to be manhandled again as soon as their door closed behind them. Maybe (hopefully) fucked right there, up against it, where there was a possibility that passers-by would hear his moans and cries as Blaine took him hard, the way he only did when they were playing like this. But Blaine, to Kurt's intense disappointment, made straight for the kitchen, leaving Kurt there by the door, throbbing with need and gaping at the space where Blaine had been.

He heard the water running in the kitchen, and a cabinet door open and close. He hadn't been given permission to unclasp his hands so he didn't try to remove his jacket, even though it was too warm in the apartment for it to be comfortable. When Blaine didn't return right away, he took a few steps into the room, to the open space between the couch and the television, and dropped to his knees, jacket and all. He didn't know what was going on with Blaine, he just hoped the sight of him kneeling would bring back the desperate, dominant, controlling Blaine from before. He really wanted that fuck.

But Kurt's heart sank when Blaine came back. The shadows and tension lines were marring his face again, like he'd used the time in the kitchen to talk himself out of a path he'd almost committed to. Kurt couldn't understand it. He'd been so relaxed in the cab, and the elevator, and now they were home the problem of Kurt submitting in public was solved so what the fuck was wrong now?

"Oh my God, Kurt, take your coat off, it's too hot!" Blaine rushed to Kurt and dropped to the floor, unbuttoning his jacket with fingers that Kurt could see shaking.

"You didn't tell me I could use my hands," Kurt said, trying to make it provocative, to remind Blaine of what they'd been doing before he freaked out for some mysterious reason.

"Well of course I want you take off your coat. Do you think I want you to get heatstroke?" Blaine focused on the buttons, avoiding Kurt's attempts to make eye contact.

"In November? In New York?" Kurt kept his hands stubbornly clasped as Blaine pulled the jacket lapels apart and tried to shove it down his arms.

"Come on, Kurt."

Defeated, Kurt put all of his frustration and pent-up lust into one eloquent sigh and stood up, pulling the jacket lapels out of Blaine's hands. He tried to calm himself down on the short trip to the closet to hang it up. After all, they would surely still have sex. And Kurt loved all their sex, including the gentle, intimate, two-boys-crazy-in-love-with-each-other kind. That just wasn't the kind he wanted at this particular moment.

When he turned back to the room Blaine was still on his knees on the floor, a turning of tables that was, given Kurt's current state of mind and body, depressing. Kurt crossed his arms and eyed his boyfriend, who stared back at him now, looking tense, a little lost, and yet still wild around the edges in a way that tugged at Kurt's body despite his exasperation.

"If you're not going to fuck me, will you please tell me what's going on? What did your mom say that's got you so upset?"

Down on the floor, Blaine shook his head. "I can't talk about that right now," he said.

"That whole display at Meg's and in the cab – I think I deserve some kind of explanation, Blaine."

Blaine climbed to his feet, still shaking his head like he feared if he stopped he might forget that the answer was _no_. "I can't," he said, looking everywhere but at Kurt. "I'm upset and we haven't talked about it and that's not the time to –"

"To what?! What do you _want_, Blaine?"

Blaine finally raised his eyes to Kurt's face. They were dark and intense and showed none of the uncertainty that Blaine's body was so eloquently expressing. They pinned Kurt in place with a heat that Kurt's body responded to immediately.

Low, so low that Kurt had to strain to hear him, Blaine said, "I want to hurt you."


	2. Chapter Two

"Okay," Kurt said.

"What?!" Blaine stared at him. He looked angry, like Kurt had given the wrong answer.

Kurt smiled, provocatively, he hoped, unfolded his arms and slinked toward Blaine. "After all we've done together, do you really think I can't handle a little rough trade?" he purred.

He'd hoped his tone would help get Blaine back on the right track – the track that led to some nice hard fucking – but it had the opposite effect. Blaine deflated before his eyes.

"You don't get it, Kurt." He was still shaking his head. "I want to hurt you. It's all I've been thinking about since the restaurant. I don't mean a little rough sex. I mean I want to tie you down and do things to you, things that we've never . . ." He ran his hands through his hair, restlessly, and turned away from Kurt as if he'd said something shameful and couldn't bear to have Kurt looking at him.

Kurt couldn't look away. The words Blaine had said, and the way Blaine was responding to them, they ignited all kinds of new feelings inside him. He did like things rough, sometimes, and he knew how a little pain – pinching, biting, pulling – could add sharp counterpoint to pleasure, focusing and enlarging it like a magnifying glass with a ray of sunlight. Pain for pain's sake was something he'd never thought about, but Blaine had, obviously, and Blaine hadn't mentioned it which implied he was ashamed about it and that in itself made Kurt want to do it, just to purge that shame from Blaine's mind.

And the thought of what Blaine would look like and sound like and _be_ like . . . that was enough to make Kurt's cock start perking up again.

He moved quickly then, grabbing Blaine by the shoulders and turning him around. "I said okay," he said, breathless with the new implication.

"No. I'm too upset. I could lose control. I shouldn't –"

"Blaine, you have never lost control in your life."

"This is different. I've never felt like this before. I don't know –"

"Are you so upset that you'd ignore a safeword?"

"No!" Blaine flinched like Kurt had hit him. "God no. I would never –"

"Then you're not too upset."

"But we never talked about it. We don't have limits. There are rules about this stuff."

"Fuck rules," Kurt said emphatically. "We make the rules. Will this help you deal with . . . whatever it is you don't want to tell me? Be honest."

"Yes," Blaine admitted, then rushed to contradict himself. "But we don't –"

"Then here are the rules. You tie me down. You try things. If I don't like it I safeword and you stop. If I do like it I scream and yell and writhe around but I _don't_ safeword and you do what you want. I think those are perfectly good rules and since I'm the one getting tied up and hurt I think I get more of a vote than you do."

"But I don't even know if you – "

Kurt could see the time for talking was over. He grabbed Blaine's hand and slapped it to his groin, with a little more force than was necessary, just to make his point. Blaine's eyebrows popped up when he felt Kurt's dick half hard in his pants.

"Tell me again," Kurt said, holding Blaine's hand in place over his cock.

"Tell you what?"

"That you want to hurt me. Say it again, and really mean it. Come on."

And then it happened. That rare and beautiful moment when Blaine dropped courtesy and good manners and all the shoulds and musts; when he started to let down the wall he usually kept between himself and his darker desires. His eyes narrowed and his spine straightened, pulling him up taller. His hand tightened around Kurt's dick and Kurt let go of his wrist because Blaine got the point now; he literally had Kurt by the balls. He stalked forward, steering Kurt backward by his dick until Kurt's back met the wall with a thump that made him wince and his cock spasm.

"I want to hurt you," Blaine said in a low growl that twisted Kurt's belly and pushed his cock over the edge into full erection against Blaine's hand.

Kurt kept his eyes locked on Blaine's, trying to communicate the enormity of his excitement in just one word. "Okay," he breathed.

"I want to make you shout. I want to make you beg for mercy." The golden heat in Blaine's eyes was igniting sparks in the air between them.

"Then trust me as much as I trust you," Kurt said, grinding against Blaine's hand.

"Stop that!" Blaine ordered, slapping Kurt's crotch.

The unexpected pain made Kurt jump and gasp, but immediately Blaine's hand went back to caressing. This time Kurt pressed his ass into the wall to help him keep still.

"Good, that's much better," Blaine said, and he kissed Kurt gently, just soft lips pressing warm, then whispered in his ear, "Strip and wait here until I call you."

"Yes, sir," Kurt said, summoning up his provocative smile again. Blaine gave his dick a warning squeeze, which he held until Kurt pulled his face into something like penitence, then he released Kurt and disappeared into the bedroom.

Left alone, Kurt was hit with the enormity of the permission he'd just given Blaine. He had no idea what he'd find when he was summoned into the bedroom. But Blaine clearly did. He'd moved with purpose. He'd been thinking about this, Kurt realized. Planning. Conflicted he may have been, but unprepared he was not. Kurt wasn't walking into some casual, improvised exploration of sensation play. Blaine had prepared for this, if only in his own head. The idea should have made him nervous, he supposed, but it actually did the opposite. He felt weirdly calmer than he had since the party. Calmer and violently aroused.

He remembered Blaine's orders and unzipped his pants with a grateful sigh. He shed shoes, socks, trousers and briefs, sweater, everything arranged neatly on the couch. Then, naked, his cock jutting and hopefully turgid, he knelt. Blaine hadn't told him to but Kurt liked how it felt to kneel and contemplate what he might be about to endure. He'd found it put him in the right frame of mine, so to speak.

Blaine must have moved quickly because almost as soon as Kurt had settled into his position the bedroom door opened and Blaine appeared. He was still fully dressed; his bare feet the only change from before. He smiled at Kurt kneeling on the floor and lifted one hand, silently crooking his finger in an unmistakable gesture. Kurt stood up as gracefully as he could manage – in many ways he thought of his progress through their scenes as a kind of dance – and obeyed. As he moved forward Blaine moved back until they had both crossed the threshold. Then Blaine moved away to stand at the foot of the bed, still smiling a small and inscrutable smile.

The lamp on the far side nightstand had been dimmed so that it cast a small, warm circle of light over the bed, which was covered, Kurt was startled to see, with what they called the drop cloth – a king-sized heavy black sheet they used whenever they thought they might get messy. Blaine had lit some of the candles that Kurt kept on the dresser and his vanity, and their light cast flickering shadows around the rest of the room. It made the space look unfamiliar and dreamy, and the candles were already starting give off their various scents, adding to the effect.

"On the bed on your back, and spread nice and wide."

Blaine's voice pulled Kurt's attention back to him and to what was about to happen. He obeyed immediately, climbing onto the bed and spreading himself with a hand or foot in each corner. He stretched out as far as he could, loving the feeling of tension in his muscles and the sense of vulnerability it gave him even before he was tied. Blaine touched one of his ankles then moved around the bed, trailing his hand up Kurt's leg, over his balls and cock, across his ribs – which made Kurt laugh breathlessly and contract against the tickle – and finally resting it firm and warm over Kurt's sternum, between his nipples.

"First I'm going to bind you to the bed," Blaine said, no trace of his earlier tension or shame in his face, "then we'll start." His eyes were warm, calm and commanding, the way they always were when they played like this. It made Kurt's chest fill with pride, knowing that he was responsible for helping Blaine exorcise his fear and doubt.

"Okay," he whispered. It seemed that was his word for the night.

"What's your safeword?" Blaine asked.

Kurt suppressed the desire to roll his eyes. "Asparagus," he said instead. _Which you know that I know because we've had the same safeword for years so relax and hurt me already, _he kept inside, although at least some of it might have shown through his eyes, if the unexpected pinch Blaine gave his nipple as he turned away from the bed was any indication.

They had bondage cuffs, but tonight Blaine used rope, wrapping it artfully around Kurt's wrists and ankles and securing each in turn to the bedposts. Kurt loved any kind of bondage, but he adored rope. There was a give to it, even where it wrapped his skin, that gave the illusion of possibility, like he could almost escape it, if he could just find the right way to move, and that illusion made the inevitable realization of his helplessness as he reached the limit and could go no farther so much more exciting. Cuffs were strict in their own way, but with rope it was as if Blaine's expertise was what held him, as opposed to the rope itself. Each wrap around his body was an extension of Blaine's hands on him and that thought made Kurt shiver in anticipation. By the time he was bound securely spread-eagle, Kurt was so turned on he would have let Blaine do absolutely anything to him.

What Blaine did was perch on the bed next to Kurt and stroke his cock, which had gotten steadily harder as the ropes restricted more and more of Kurt's body. Kurt knew he should brace himself for another smack, or a pinch; Blaine had he was going to be hurt. But he felt so secure in the bondage and Blaine's hand was so warm and he'd been aroused for so long that instead he closed his eyes and enjoyed the first direct contact his dick had gotten that night. There was no way Blaine was going to let him come, not yet, but if he was going to be hurt Kurt figured he'd better enjoy what pleasure he could get and deal with the pain when it happened.

Blaine didn't slap or pinch his cock. He just kept stroking, slowly. Kurt's arousal had been so up and down throughout the evening that he expected to feel his need build to fever pitch, but Blaine was good at this. He knew how to wind Kurt up, when he wanted to, but he also knew how to soothe him with pleasure, and he used that skill now. Under his clever fingers Kurt stretched as far as the ropes would allow and closed his eyes. His cock was heavy with possibility and soft waves of sensation rolled out from it. They rippled through his body and lifted him until he was floating on them; only the ropes around his arms and legs kept him tethered to the bed. Without them he was sure he would drift right away, up through the ceiling and out into the sky.

Warm lips pressed to Kurt's and a bare chest fluttered against his in a rhythm that interrupted the flow of his pleasure waves. He opened his eyes to find Blaine's startlingly close, sparkling with laughter.

"You're purring," Blaine said.

Kurt felt himself blush. He knew he tended to hum when he was very aroused. He still hadn't decided whether he loved or hated the name Blaine had given the phenomenon.

"You like it when I purr," he said.

Blaine kissed him again. Being kissed while bound was so different from any other time. Kurt swore he could feel the kiss not just in his lips, but anywhere the ropes or cuffs or leather touched his body. This time Blaine's kiss, the soft movements of his lips and the teasing strokes of his tongue, echoed in each of Kurt's wrists and ankles. Pulling against the bonds intensified the effect.

"Stop squirming," Blaine said, pulling back to smile down at Kurt. "I'm ready to start."

Kurt took a deep breath and let it out, slow and measured.

Blaine watched him, still smiling. It was a strange sort of not-smile smile, something that implied danger more than happiness. But Kurt knew this Blaine. This Blaine excited him just as much as the other, normal Blaine. The wild, tense Blaine was the stranger, and that Blaine couldn't be seen anywhere anymore.

"What are you going to do to me?" Kurt asked. He tried to make it sound more like an invitation than a query.

"It's very simple. If you do everything I say, this ends with you coming in any way you like. But if you disobey me, you won't come at all. I'll edge you until you beg and then make you go to bed like that, and you'll have to hope I'm ready to forgive you in the morning."

Kurt shivered in his bonds. Talk like that was like fingers poking and teasing all the sensitive places that Kurt tried to keep hidden, sometimes even from himself. Blaine always knew how to zero in on them, though. Blaine knew better than Kurt what made him tick.

Blaine stood up then, and Kurt could see that although he'd taken his shirt off, his pants were still on. They bulged noticeably in the front. Another shudder ran though him. Seeing how much this turned Blaine on never failed to excite him.

He should probably have been tense, since he had absolutely no idea how Blaine planned to hurt him, but Blaine's stroking and kisses had lulled him into a place where fretting about what was about to happen seemed like a complete waste of energy and attention. Kurt closed his eyes again and concentrated on the happy throbbing in his cock. Blaine's mouth, he thought. He'd come in Blaine's mouth. Blaine's tongue was twice as talented as his fingers and there was very little in the world that could equal a Blaine blowjob.

He heard the sound first, familiar but not. He couldn't place it until the acrid smell of sulfur assaulted his nose. He opened his eyes to find Blaine standing over him holding a lit candle. Not one of his. This one he'd never seen before; it was fat and white and Kurt had enough experience to know what it was meant for. He shuddered again.

Standing over him with the candle, Blaine looked like a kind of kinky priest, about to perform an extremely unorthodox sacrament. Kurt couldn't take his eyes of him as he moved around the bed and up toward the headboard, away from all the truly sensitive places, Kurt realized. He wasn't sure if he was more relieved or disappointed.

"We'll start out slow," Blaine said, and his voice was Blaine and yet not-Blaine, sharp on the consonants but dragging the vowels. Like a liturgy, Kurt realized. Like his very words were a prayer.

With his free hand Blaine stroked the fingers of Kurt's right hand, spreading them out against the sheet until his hand was splayed open. "I want you to hold yourself like this," he said. "Don't move, don't clench. Keep your hand open just like this."

"Okay," Kurt murmured. He took a breath and watched as Blaine began to tip the candle over his palm, but he closed his eyes at the last moment so he didn't see the wax fall. He hissed as burning pain splashed onto his hand. His feet flexed against the ropes and his other fist clenched as he struggled to absorb the pain. It felt like fire, but only for a moment. Faster than Kurt had expected, the burn faded to a deep warmth that spread beyond the actual space covered by the wax to envelop his whole hand.

"Very good," Blaine crooned, stroking Kurt's upper arm. "That was perfect. Keep that up and you'll be coming in no time." His touch disappeared. Kurt opened his eyes. It took a few seconds to focus them properly and find Blaine at the foot of the bed, moving around to the other side. The whole scenario was repeated there and Kurt learned that anticipating the pain didn't make it any easier to endure. But this time when the soothing heat began to spread it traveled farther, past his wrist and into his forearm.

Until Blaine's hand stroked his forehead, Kurt didn't even realize he was sweating.

Back around the bed Blaine went again, Kurt once more forcing his eyes into focus to follow the movement of the candle's flickering light. This time Blaine set the candle in a holder on the nightstand and sat down on the bed next to Kurt's upraised arm. He smiled at Kurt, looking calmer even than he had before they'd started.

"Relax. This is the good part," he told Kurt. He tapped Kurt's shoulders, which Kurt realized were pulled up tight around his ears. Kurt took another deep breath and let them fall.

Blaine leaned forward and carefully peeled the almost dry wax from Kurt's palm. He blew gently on the now-bare spot, then licked over it, and Kurt cried out before he could stop himself. Somehow the number of nerve endings in his palm had doubled, tripled; Blaine's tongue on them made his head spin.

Blaine's mouth pressed to Kurt's yet again, in time to swallow the last of his cry. The kiss was hard and fast and the Blaine leered at him, eyebrows wiggling. Dear God, Blaine needed to learn to control those eyebrows.

"Imagine how that's going to feel on your cock."

He turned away to pick up his candle, so he didn't see Kurt gape and try very hard not to think about what it was going to feel like on his cock. Nor did he see Kurt's cock dance a damp little jig when he failed.

Blaine didn't go back to Kurt's other hand – he could feel the wax there tightening as it dried. Instead he stopped this time at the foot of the bed by Kurt's left leg.

"Turn your leg out," he ordered.

Kurt whimpered but obeyed. The rope holding him had just enough give that he could rotate until his inner thigh was exposed and vulnerable.

"Same rules. Don't move," Blaine said firmly.

Kurt tried to lock his leg into place. He knew this was going to be so much worse than his hand. He held his breath and clenched both fists tight.

Blaine drew a line of fire down his thigh, and Kurt's gasp at the first splash grew into a moan and finally a full throated cry. Everything moved except that leg; he pulled against the ropes with a strength that more than tested Blaine's bondage skills. His ass flexed and lifted off the bed; his right leg struggled impossibly to close and protect himself. But everything held and miraculously Kurt's left leg stayed put, exactly as ordered, presenting itself for torment. And by the time Kurt's body flopped back onto the bed the burning pain had again subsided to deep, penetrating heat and Blaine's face was against his, cheek pressing to cheek, words whispering against Kurt's ear.

"Perfect, my God that was beautiful. You're so good for me, Kurt. So perfect."

Kurt was still struggling to catch his breath so all he could do was whimper and press his face against Blaine's. Blaine let him nestle while he reached down and stroked Kurt's cock, which was still hard despite the pain. Or maybe because of the pain. Kurt wasn't really in a place where he could figure that out. When Blaine moved away he tried to watch, but his eyes wouldn't quite focus. He saw two flickering flames instead of one, but when Blaine approached his right leg he turned it out without being told.

"That's right," Blaine said, stroking a hand over his target area. "So good."

This time Kurt didn't bother with gasping or moaning. He went straight to crying out, pulling, tensing, lifting, spreading the effect of the pain through his body and out his fingertips and toes like polarized lightning. But his right leg stayed open and still without him even thinking about it.

He thought Blaine made a sound, but he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything but heat and pain and the pressure of need in his cock and balls and the racing of his heart. Breathing was the only thing he wanted to think about, until sudden, unbearable pleasure overtook every other sensation. He forced his eyes open to find a fuzzy-around-the-edges Blaine licking at his thigh – he couldn't remember if it was the first or the second one but he didn't care. Pleasure was so much better than pain and so much stronger because of the pain he could now compare it to. He let his eyes droop again and surrendered to the dizzy swoops of Blaine's tongue, first on one side then the other, Kurt thought, it was all blurring together now and he didn't try to fight for clarity.

Clarity, though, forced itself on him when something rubbed drily over his right nipple. His eyes flew open and of course there was Blaine, holding the candle and staring down at him with the ghost of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

"Please . . ." Kurt managed to gasp.

Blaine's thumb kept stroking and God, it felt good, Kurt wanted to fall into the buzzing tease of it. He could feel his cock leaking in anticipation but he knew where it was going and it was too much. "Please," he said again. "I can't."

"Of course you can. Close your eyes."

He didn't want to obey; he tried not to but he'd come too far and his cock was begging him to give Blaine whatever he asked for, anything to win the reward of Blaine's mouth. Whining on each shaky sharp exhale, Kurt did as Blaine had commanded.

Searing heat, impossible heat rained down on his sensitive flesh. He would have screamed but Blaine's hand covered his mouth, gently, just for a moment, but it was enough to keep the sound tight in Kurt's throat, a screeching moan that broke into a sob as the pain spread through his chest. He writhed against the ropes, pulled with all his might but they held fast and he was helpless to protect himself, helpless to do anything but beg, "Don't, please, no," as his left nipple was tweaked and pinched then tortured with more dripping agony.

The pain carried Kurt, as the pleasure had done before, cascading through his body in ripples that searched out every secret place and infiltrated it, leaving no part of him untouched, no place safe from the heat and torment and rolling, undulating pleasure of Blaine's mouth on his nipple. Kurt mewled and arched up into Blaine's mouth, desperate for more, begging for _more, harder, please_ as Blaine sucked at flesh that felt newborn and untouched. His nerves exploded under Blaine's sucking lips and flicking tongue, he cried out, lost to it, and he could come, he was sure he could come if only Blaine would suck a little bit harder, but it wasn't enough, first one nipple then the other, never quite enough. He longed for Blaine to bite, devour, _hurt_ him and make him come but Blaine was too smart, too good at this. He teased Kurt's nipples for what felt like hours until Kurt was shuddering under him, humping mindlessly into the air and moaning with total abandon.

When Blaine's mouth finally went away, Kurt managed to gasp, "Don't stop, please, please, please . . ."

Blaine rested his hand on Kurt's chest again, as he had at the beginning, right between Kurt's nipples. Kurt twisted under him, trying uselessly to force his hand one way or the other, to bring back the piercing bliss of his touch.

"You've been amazing, Kurt," Blaine said, and even in his state Kurt could hear a breathless strain in Blaine's voice. "I can't even tell you how incredible you are. But there's one more place left before we're done." His hand moved lower, down over Kurt's belly in a caress that would have been tickling again if Kurt wasn't so completely strung out on much more important sensations. When Blaine's hand wrapped around Kurt's cock, there was no whining or begging. Kurt was so far beyond that. He opened his eyes and found his vision suddenly crystal clear. Blaine stood by the bed, completely naked now, somehow, stroking Kurt's cock and looking so . . . decided. Implacable.

Everything was clear and simple in Kurt's head. The thought of the wax falling on his cock, its excruciating heat searing his balls, sucked all of Kurt's breath out of his body and left him dizzy and full of wrenching fear. He could safeword, he knew, _asparagus_, it was four syllables and everything would be over. Blaine wouldn't be upset, he never was, he wouldn't be; Kurt had already done so much for him tonight. He would never dream of blaming Kurt for being afraid.

But . . . but, there was a tiny, loud, and getting louder place in Kurt that was enticed by the sheer absurdity of it. It was insane but, could he? Was he strong enough? It was a test and Blaine wanted him to do it so badly and Kurt never backed down from a challenge and he wanted to see how Blaine would look at him, the wonder and awe in his eyes, the _need_, Kurt wanted that. Maybe he just wanted to know that he _could_. And, God help him, he wanted to know what Blaine's mouth on his cock would feel like, after. He wanted that even more than he feared the pain.

Blaine was still stroking, watching, waiting. Quickly, before he changed his mind, Kurt nodded once. "Okay," he said.

Blaine didn't say anything and if he had any other reaction Kurt didn't see it because he closed his eyes tight, gripped the ropes holding him to the bed posts with sweaty hands, pressed his lips tight together, and waited.

"Here we go," Blaine said.

His groin exploded in agonizing, searing heat, it was more than wax, it had to be, Blaine had lit him on fire and he wailed and twisted, trying futilely to shake it off, sobbing, gasping for air, he fought the ropes with inhuman strength but even that wasn't enough to break them. And still his cock throbbed violently and his balls pulled tight and he had to clamp down viciously against a burgeoning orgasm.

He had no idea how long he rolled through the pain, letting it spread, crying with relief as the fierce blaze on his cock and balls finally gave way to that warmth that was almost soothing in the wake of the misery that had come before. He found himself trembling, though he wasn't cold, pulling air into aching lungs in long gasps and trying to hump against Blaine's hand as it peeled the wax away from his still so hard flesh.

Blaine didn't speak, didn't even look at Kurt. He sank down on Kurt's erection as soon as it was clean and when Kurt pumped up into his throat – because it was worth it, so worth it, nothing had ever felt like this before – Blaine grabbed his ass cheeks and pulled him deeper, encouraging him. Kurt fucked into Blaine with abandon. Each long thrust in and out made him giddy, it tingled though his whole body and spiked with special intensity in the places Blaine had hurt: his palms, his nipples, his inner thighs. He swore he could feel every ridge of Blaine's lips, every bump of his tongue as he slid past, his cock felt twice its normal size, three times, engorged and infinitely sensitive. Blaine sucked hard and Kurt's balls clenched again, too soon, he wanted to feel this way forever, but the call was irresistible and he drove into Blaine as his orgasm grew and swelled and rippled, taking over his entire body before it peaked and broke in spasming waves of ecstasy, release, relief. They seemed to go on forever and for a final time Kurt pulled at the bonds that held him so perfectly and shuddered under Blaine. He was still shuddering when he felt something warm and wet splash his belly, accompanied by a cry of pleasure as piercing as any of his cries of pain.


	3. Chapter Three

The next morning Kurt woke to sunshine and birdsong and a sense of complete contentment. Laying under his damask comforter with Blaine gently almost-snoring beside him felt like he always did after a night of amazing sex. Wonderful.

Until he tried to move, that his. His attempt to spoon Blaine was aborted halfway when every muscle he owned screamed in post-bondage protest. He must have made a sound, though the pain was too loud in his ears for him to hear it, because Blaine bolted upright, then turned toward him, looking frantic.

"Hey! Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, why?" Kurt gingerly settled himself onto his back again, wincing with every movement.

Blaine's eyes were concerned – and something else that Kurt couldn't pinpoint. "You sounded like something hurt. You look like something hurts."

Kurt raised an eyebrow at him. "Blaine, you tied me down and tortured me last night. Every time you hit me with wax I played tug-of-war with the bed and lost. Everything hurts."

Kurt expected to be held, petted, kissed at the very least. Instead Blaine plopped down on his back and pulled his pillow over his face. "Oh God," he said, muffled by the down, "I'm _so_ sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" Kurt sighed. He knew Blaine well enough to know exactly where this was going.

"It shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have . . ." Blaine trailed off like he could bear to finish the sentence.

"Shouldn't have what, Blaine?"

"I was out of control. My mother was . . . my mother, and I was so upset and I started something we'd never talked about and, oh my God, I fucked up, I'm sorry."

Kurt forced his body into motion. Slow and jerky, like Dorothy's Tin Man running low on oil, he rolled onto his side and pulled the pillow off of Blaine's face. Blaine didn't acknowledge its loss. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling.

"Okay, first, you were not out of control. Whatever might have been going on in your head, you tied me safely and you reassured me and you told me what you were going to do; you did everything right."

"But I –"

"Second, we did talk about it. Before we did it. You said you wanted to hurt me and I said okay and we had the very important safeword speech and I was fine. I consented. I also had an amazing orgasm that I think I'm still recovering from."

Blaine looked at him then. At first he just turned his head, but after a moment his body followed. He rolled on his side so they were face to face and now Kurt could easily see the expression in Blaine's eyes that had eluded him before. It was shame.

"I hurt you." Blaine said simply, like the explained everything.

"Is that really what you're torturing yourself over?" Kurt asked. "That you hurt me? Or that you _wanted_ to hurt me?"

Blaine groaned and rolled onto his stomach, hiding his face in the bed again. Kurt reached out and stroked his back, ignoring his shoulder's eloquently registered protest.

"You must have been thinking about it for a while. You already had that candle. I know you can't do that with just any candle, and even if you could, _you_ wouldn't. If you wanted that why didn't you ever say anything?"

Blaine turned his head out of the mattress. His face was red, but that might have just been from his position. "I guess I – I didn't _want_ to want to hurt you. The idea turned me on so much but it didn't seem right, somehow. Why would I want that? I love you. And I know we play around with dominating and stuff but this seemed like . . . I didn't really understand it. I'm not sure I like it."

"You seemed to like it," Kurt pointed out.

"You know what I mean! I'm not sure I _like_ that I like it."

Kurt tried to stroke Blaine's back, imagining rusty tin noises as his shoulder moved from side to side. At least he hoped he was only imagining them. "Look," he said, trying to sound supportive and not just impatient. "Plenty of people are into pain. It's just another kind of sex. It doesn't make you a bad person and it doesn't mean you don't love me."

"I know that! Of course I love you."

"And in case you can't remember, I was hard the whole time. I mean, it just doesn't seem right to say I _liked_ it, but I was into it. All the sensations and how intense it was, and what it was doing to you. I wouldn't want to do it every day, or even every month, but I wouldn't say no to exploring more of that. Pain. It's just another tool. One more thing we can play with together. And we were together, last night. It wasn't you doing things to me it was us, doing things together. I need to know you know that."

Blaine was still frowning and there were still lines around his eyes, but he nodded. "I do. I think I do. You know what seeing my mother does to me. I never handle it the way I want to. I feel like I took it out on you."

"No, you used me to help you feel more in control."

"That's just it! I used you –"

"With my consent," Kurt interrupted him emphatically. "You let me help you. That's something we do for each other. Do you think for a minute I wouldn't have safeworded if I'd needed to? Just because you were upset?"

That, at least, pulled the corners of Blaine's mouth more in the right direction. "No. I know you too well to think that."

"Then you have to accept that I didn't do anything I didn't want to do and that I wasn't okay with. Right?" he asked pointedly, staring at Blaine with obvious expectation.

Blaine nodded.

"Good!" Kurt flopped back on his back and didn't try to suppress the groan the movement caused him. "Now can we please end this self-flagellation? Because I was the one who got tied up and tortured so I think you're the one who should be doing the reassuring and caretaking this morning. Not me."

Blaine burst up so fast the vibration of it made Kurt's muscles voice a painful complaint. "Oh my God, I'm sor–"

"Don't be sorry. Be making me breakfast in bed." It was Kurt's turn to stare stonily at the ceiling, making the point that he was done talking. But Blaine's face hovered over his, finally grinning, finally relaxed.

"Your wish is my command," he said, and pecked Kurt's forehead as he went. A little too forcefully. Kurt's neck sang with pain, but he suppressed that particular groan.

Two hours later, after a leisurely breakfast that Blaine practically fed to him, two cups of coffee that smelled like paradise and tasted like bliss, and the world's slowest, most sensual massage that had worked out almost all the tension in Kurt's body, they lounged together neck-deep in hot water, Kurt cradled in the circle of Blaine's arms.

The claw-foot tub had been one of the main reasons Kurt had insisted on this particular apartment. It was nowhere near long enough for the two of them – they were both bent almost double with knees sticking up into the air – but it was deep and the hot water was covering most of his sore body so Kurt was content. In fact, he was almost drowsy. He closed his eyes and leaned back against Blaine's shoulder. He could absolutely fall asleep like this, he thought, if only Blaine wasn't stroking up and down his torso with soapy hands, sliding back and forth over his nipples in that very enticing way. Not that he ever would have asked Blaine to stop.

"What did she say?" he asked, reaching back to slide a hand around Blaine's neck and tease at the damp curls there.

"Who?"

"Your mother. You never told me what she said that upset you so much."

Blaine's hands paused very briefly in their journey, just a hitch before he picked up the rhythm again.

"I don't think I want to talk about that just yet."

"Blaine."

"I'll tell you at dinner, how about that? I want to go out, someplace really nice. I want to finish this bath, then take a nap with you, then go out. And then I'll tell you all about it. Okay?"

Blaine's soapy hands moved lower and found Kurt's cock, which had been perking up since the nipple work. One hand wrapped around the expanding length, the other reached lower to gently roll Kurt's balls. Kurt was perfectly aware that he was being manipulated, but it was some very enticing manipulation.

"Okay," he said, and thrust carefully into Blaine's soapy fist.

"No, don't move," Blaine said against his ear. "Let me."

Kurt let him. The soapy slide of his long, nimble fingers was too delicious to resist. When he came it was silently, floating in the warm water, shuddering in Blaine's arms.

Blaine helped him out of the tub, dried him off like he was handling a precious treasure, led him to the bedroom and cuddled with him, naked under the comforter, until Kurt drifted off to sleep on the scent of soap and damask and his boyfriend.

It was enough to make Kurt reconsider how soon he'd be willing to repeat the pain play. And that was before the dinner.

"Where are we going?" Kurt called from his closet, much later. "I need to know how to dress."

"Saville," Blaine called back from the living room.

Kurt marched out into the living room still naked, holding the shirt he'd been considering. "I'm sorry," he said, "I thought you said Saville."

Blaine looked up from the magazine he was reading. "I did say Saville," he said, so casually, like they went to Saville every night.

"It takes weeks to get a reservation there!"

Blaine shrugged. "I called, they had a cancellation. I wanted to go somewhere special so I thought it was worth a try. And it I was right."

Kurt stared at him. "You're serious? We're going to Saville. Tonight."

"Yep," Blaine said, clearly very pleased with himself.

"This changes everything! I need at least another hour." Kurt turned on his heel and fled back into the bedroom.

"I already planned for that!" Blaine called after him.

Saville wasn't at the very top tier of sought-after Manhattan restaurants, but it was close. Kurt hadn't been exaggerating about weeks to get a reservation. But his excitement was tempered by nerves. What could he possibly wear that would do it justice?

He figured it out, of course, he _was_ Kurt Hummel, and by the time he and Blaine were going out the door he felt resplendent in his suit and tie, and Blaine looked as amazing as only Blaine could. They would be the handsomest couple there, Kurt was quite sure.

The restaurant was beautiful and they were shown to a quiet corner table by a gratifyingly obsequious host. They ordered drinks and appetizers, and Kurt grabbed Blaine's hand as soon as the waiter turned his back.

"How amazing is this? I think saw Laura Osnes over by the bar!"

Blaine didn't even glance in the direction Kurt indicated. He only had eyes for Kurt. He held tight to Kurt's hand until their drinks were delivered, then he toasted Kurt with his cosmo and took a tiny sip.

"I think I'm ready to tell you about my mom," he said. His voice shook a little, which wasn't unusual, unfortunately, where Blaine's mother was concerned.

"Okay," Kurt said, taking a sip from his own drink and setting it down.

"My mom was upset because I told her something. Some news."

Kurt's stomach twisted. "What news?" he asked.

"Good news! Don't worry. I think it's good. My mom didn't really think so."

"Which means it's either something to do with music or something to do with me," Kurt finished for him.

"You know it's not you she has a problem with. Not specifically. It's just the whole . . ."

"Gay thing," Kurt finished. "So what got her so upset?"

Blaine took another sip of his drink. "She didn't even really get upset. That was the worst part. I mean, I knew she wouldn't be happy. And I guess I should have been relieved that she didn't throw a fit but," Blaine looked at Kurt with the same pain Kurt had seen last night, under the frantic need, "at least throwing a fit would mean that she cared, one way or the other. But this was just . . . nothing. She was blank. Like it didn't even matter to her. It wasn't worth her emotion either way. I know I should be used to it by now but this was so important to me and she just didn't give a damn."

Kurt hummed sympathetically. Blaine's mom was a sore subject with him. "So what exactly did you tell her that she didn't react to?" he asked. At this point he was burning with curiosity.

Blaine blinked at him; he seemed almost at a loss for words.

"Well, I told her I love you," he said.

"She knows that."

"I told her I'm never going to love anyone like I love you. Really, Kurt. You're the love of my life. That's what I told her."

"And that's it?" Kurt asked.

"That's not it." Blaine said, he took a deep shaky breath and slipped his hand from the table, rooting into his jacket pocket.

Kurt's heart stopped beating. In a flash of complete astonishment he knew exactly what was happening.

"I also told her," Blaine said, slipping out of his chair and onto the floor, "that I was going to ask you to marry me." He finally pulled a box from his pocket and held it out, fingers shaking as he opened it.

Frozen, Kurt thought he heard gasps. He hoped they weren't homophobic asshole gasps, because he was going to personally beat the living crap out of anyone who ruined this moment for him.

"So?" he whispered to Blaine.

"So . . . what?" Blaine asked.

"If you're going to ask me don't you think you should actually ask me?"

Blaine laughed, a shaky chuckle. He looked up at Kurt like he was staring up at the sun. "Kurt Hummel, will you marry me?"

Kurt's eyes filled with tears. He must have nodded, because around them people clapped, someone whistled. Blaine stood and pulled him up and kissed him but Kurt needed to say it to make it real. He clung to Blaine and pressed his lips to Blaine's ear.

"Okay."


End file.
